Saturday, September 8, 2012

My boys are growing up - Gregory

So already over a week ago Gregory started his career as a student.  We found out the Friday before Gregory would start school who his teacher is and what class he'll be in...a Multi-Grade Class (K, 1 & 2).  We had marked the box for Gregory to be put in this class so that if it was "God's plan" for him to be in this class then we were open to it.  Nervous about it, but open to it and besides out of over 100 students, only 14 kindergartners were randomly selected to be in the multi-grade class.  Anyways, so Gregory was chosen.  After the first couple of days we were feeling better about Gregory being in a multi-grade class.  I am pretty sure the "shock" of being at school from 8 - 230 every day and not being with mom and dad during this time was a big source of what we were concerned about.  

Also, we started the common "first day of school picture" tradition and added a little bit more to it by having Gregory write his name and telling me what he wants to be when he grows up.  This will be an item to cherish over the years for sure.  And for those who are curious he wants to be a paleontologist, police officer or an astronaut (and a few days later added a pilot).  Big dream...love it!
Gregory will be quick to tell you that his favorite parts of school are recess and lunch.  He loves the cafeteria food!  I guess I might too if I had THREE choices for a main entree every day.  He loves going to the library, doing crafts (art), likes music, enjoys PE and has made friends quickly (not a surprise!).

So far he has learned to count by two's, learned about syllables and counting them, learned some German (since this is our "host nation"), learned some Spanish (because everyone should know some, right? haha).  Gregory is such a sponge and loves learning, I pray this continues well into his life...actually throughout his entire life.

Another new thing for Gregory is "organized" sports.  Gregory is playing for the Purple Monsters soccer team (a base youth sports team).  This is the 4 & 5 year olds team.  So he has practice once a week and a game on Saturdays for about 2 months.  Today was their first game and it was about 80 degrees outside, so very hot and Gregory was so tired due to the heat so he didn't want to play very much (kind of understandable, but this also shows how dedicated Gregory is to the sport already :-)  He did help his team out some and got to share in the victory of his team winning.  It was fun to watch him and the other kids play today.    

My boys are growing up - Joshua

This week has been full of big "deals" in our house.  In brief...Gregory started school and Joshua got rid of his pacifier.

Joshua getting rid of his pacifier has a little less detail about it so I'll start with this...Tom and I have been saying that Joshua's paci is yucky and trash for quite a while in hopes that he would start agreeing with us and finally on Thursday morning just out of the blue Joshua walked over to the trash can and threw his paci in the trash.  Since I was concerned what bedtime (or naptime) might look like I explained to Joshua that we needed to put paci in a bag to throw it away.  Luckily, Gregory was at school or he would have been asking lots of questions about "what" we were doing.  With Joshua it's easier sometimes since he doesn't need an answer for "why?".  So we got a ziploc bag and put paci in there and then tossed it back in the trash.  After Joshua had walked away and was no where in the area to see what I was doing...I snatched the paci out of the trash and put it away far from Joshua's sight just in case.  We had also told Joshua when he got rid of paci we'd get him a new stuffed Pooh.  He loves Pooh and doesn't have a Winnie the Pooh...he has Tigger, but not Pooh.  Anyways, so I kept talking about how the next day when Gregory was in school we'd go to the toy store and get him Pooh.  There have only been a couple of times Joshua has asked for his "wawa"...don't ask where that name came from...we have no idea!  But I have been quick to remind him that HE put paci in the trash and now he has Pooh because he is a big boy.  We are so proud of Joshua and so thankful this hasn't been as hard as we anticipated.  Thank you Jesus!  Now to move on to potty training...maybe we should wait till he's ready on this too...it might work better :-)     

Here's a picture of Joshua with his new Pooh that he sleeps with.  No more "stinky wawa" as Joshua says :-)